Very Special Maths

Developing Thinking and Maths Skills for Pupils with Severe or Complex Learning Difficulties

Les Staves

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781317270744
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written for those who work with pupils with severe and profound learning difficulties, this practical book uniquely describes content for a special curriculum in maths, and looks at how early ideas develop and become real knowledge, essential to daily function. Les Staves explains recent theories about the early development of understanding numbers, including a breakdown of the processes of learning to count which are largely neglected in the National Curriculum. He also outlines the 'big ideas' that are fundamental to the beginnings of mathematical thinking for children with severe and profound learning difficulties, which are vital to carrying out practical mathematical processes.

Part 1

About a special curriculum

1	What this book is about

Teaching very special mathematics and thinking

This book is about teaching children with very special educational needs who continue to work at early levels of learning throughout their school careers – or lives. Mostly it is about children who work below the levels described by the National Curriculum. Some will be unable to count, many will not be fluent, some will use small counting practically and some will seem to count well – but do not understand what they are doing. So what is mathematics for these children? Is it relevant to teach them? I hope to make you think positively and help you teach them useful skills – including ‘thinking’.

The book refers to the very wide range of children across all age phases and settings of special education. These children have so many different characteristics that there will inevitably be generalisations or places where points only apply to particular groups.

The usual labels applied in the UK to these children describe two broad groups with ‘severe’ or ‘profound’ learning difficulties – using acronyms of SLD and PLD – and both groups include some who are on the autistic spectrum. Some schools also have children with moderate learning difficulties or SLD pupils who progress and reach the early levels of the National Curriculum, so some of the book is about children who are beginning to be numerate.

Throughout the book, I often refer to the children as ‘special’, or ‘very special’, simply because firstly it is positive and that is how I see the characters that I have spent a lifetime teaching. Their learning processes and personalities have fascinated and taught me. Their progress has given me joy, and I have known heartache with them, too. Secondly, I refer to them in that way to avoid too much repetition of acronyms and long clinical descriptions.

1.1 See online reading for an overview of very special children

All online resources referenced throughout the book can be accessed online via the following link www.routledge.com/9781138195530

A time of change

We are at an exciting time. Curriculum structures are changing, and many schools may elect to use ‘life skills’ or ‘thinking skills’ as the themes of their curriculum frameworks, whilst others may retain some subject teaching, including maths.

Whatever curriculum model we adopt, a purpose of our teaching must be to enable these children to access as full a life as possible. Maths comes into it because there are so many ways that they need to understand about all sorts of things such as the quantities, sequences, comparisons of spaces and shapes they use and the time they live through. They need practical understanding of how changes affect them and how they can affect changes. That is the kind of mathematics that is essential to them as they deal with everyday living. So, in this book, I will explore how children learn about these things. This book will be useful for teachers, whichever curriculum model they work with. I will try to illustrate how maths can be practical or social or cultural – and illustrate the learning processes that are needed within a practical curriculum.

2	About curriculum attitudes and mindsets

About curriculum attitudes

Before 1970, the children this book is about had no right to education and there were no schools for them. When the schools were opened our curriculum ambitions were only practical and influenced by negative ideas about these children’s potential. The introduction of the National Curriculum forced changes. At our best, creative teachers radically interpreted subject content into creative teaching that inspired pupils to new learning – you can read about inspirational teachers in the online files. But this approach also sometimes sank into tokenism or teaching inappropriate subject content. Worst of all, there was pressure to measure children’s progress with unsuitable measures, and too often assessment dominated thinking about the nature of what should be taught.

Now there is a time of change. More schools are evolving the ways they teach, and at the forefront of their minds is that their curriculum should outline teaching that is engaging and appropriate.

2.1 See online reading for more about the background to development – and different curriculum perspectives

Mindsets

Our mindset about maths

The purpose of this book is to explore creative ways of developing the roots of practical mathematical thinking and activity for very special children. The trouble with maths is that many people are anxious about it, remembering it as something they didn’t like at school. Maths anxiety is an affliction that many of us share and, if the number of people who deny being good at maths is anything to go by, there is even the possibility we are a majority – and this in turn might affect the value we put on maths or the roles we attribute to it as an element of a relevant curriculum for children with very special needs.

Is maths an abstract subject?

If people think that maths is an abstract subject that begins with counting and is all about juggling numbers and getting answers correct, or naming and theorising about shapes, they are likely to have a negative attitude towards its relevance for pupils who work at very early cognitive levels. By extension, they may also think of these children as being people who cannot benefit from that aspect of culture. Sadly, the belief that ‘they can’t count so maths is irrelevant’ is not uncommon, and is an idea that potentially opens doors to other negative attitudes. The roots of mathematics are essential parts of our social lives long before we can count. Whilst it is true that the programmes of the conventional curriculum being written for the typical majority of children at school age do not begin at the beginning of life learning – and so do not match the needs of our special pupils – there is still a huge root system of pre-numerate learning that is usually developed before school age, which is relevant – it is the roots of life maths.

Our mindset about pupils

Through the sway of their expectations, teachers can be either the greatest asset or a negative influence on children’s lives. If our curriculum philosophy begins by thinking about what children cannot achieve, we run the risk of limiting both our ambition for them and their potential. We have to ask – are there curriculum attitudes that can incorporate both realism and positive outlooks?

Even for our most profoundly disabled students, we must want to seek to expand their capability to interact socially. The online reading includes an example of how our attitudes and ideas about the relevance of exploration have changed. Promoting curiosity and the urge to solve the immediate problems that they face is the root of thinking – the seedbed of communication – and almost always includes elements of changing quantities, or space or time – the roots of life’s maths.

2.2 See ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Part 1 About a special curriculum
• Part 2 Tools for learning
• Part 3 Processes of learning
• Part 4 Thinking about thinking
• Part 5 Developing mathematical ideas
• Index